


Flesh Without Blood

by coffeespoons



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: F/F, post-Stakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 00:41:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5270075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeespoons/pseuds/coffeespoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two old friends catch up after coming down from one hell of a week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh Without Blood

Four weeks to the day Princess Bubblegum left her to sort herself out on her couch, Marceline shimmered out of thin air in the castle laboratory, hanging upside down inches away from the Princess’ furrowed brow. 

“Boo,” she said. 

Bubblegum blinked, reaching out to the dark curtain of hair hanging before her. Silver strands glimmered beneath her fingers. 

“What on…”

Marceline smiled crooked, one tooth poking out. 

“Found those after all the… hubbub.”

Bubblegum remembered, now, brushing back the silver strands stuck against her fallen friend’s clammy blue face; she hadn’t registered them, too busy looking for that pulse she would never find beating in Marceline’s throat again.

“Rethinking the dye job?” she said.

Marceline tumbled in the air, righting herself to face the Princess. “Are you kidding?” she said, snatching Bubblegum’s hand in her own. “I’m showing these babies off, Bubs.”

“It suits you,” Bubblegum mumbled, staring at their conjoined hands. 

“And what about you, Bon,” Marceline said, playing with the pink hand in her possession. “What did our little experience leave with you?”

“Well…” Bubblegum reluctantly withdrew her hand, inspected her nonexistent nails. “I did start to notice this really annoying, nagging pain in my--”

“Bonnibel,” Marceline cut her off, leaning back with her hands folded neatly in front of her. Bubblegum called this patented Marcy pose: The hammock. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Marcy. I’m sorry I haven’t come down to the cave, but…” With her newly freed hand, Bubblegum removed her crown. “I got this back, as you may recall...” She frisbeed the crown into the castle wall with a ear-ringing clink. Marceline raised her brows in surprise. “And I didn’t want to, you know--”

“Bon,” Marcy shook her head. She reached her hand out again. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Bubblegum took her hand. “Let’s.”

\---

“My offer still stands, you know,” Bubblegum said over a cherry slushee later. Marceline smiled her new crooked smile again. 

“I know,” she said. “You should come visit me, Bonni.”

Bubblegum tried to temper the sting of her second rejection. She hated the cave; it was dark and damp and the only good thing in it was sitting right next to her. 

“I guess I’ll just keep asking,” Bubblegum said with a shrug. 

\---

Marceline’s nightly visits continued, and gone was the dutiful hesitance of Bubblegum past; every hand offered was accepted. Bubblegum even made sure to carve out more time to come to Marceline - it was only fair. 

During this time it was not unusual for Bonnibel to wake up some mornings in a pool of drool, tucked into a corner of Marceline’s awful sofa or flush against the vampire herself, who took to wearing soft, warm things as if to make up for the bony coldness of her own flesh. “You passed out,” an exhausted Marceline would mumble over a bowl of strawberries the next morning. “Again.”

“I’m sorry, Marcy,” Bubblegum yawned. Sometimes, after this, she would only burrow herself deeper in to her corner of the couch, or closer to the perturbed creature next to her…

\---

On the anniversary of her rebirth, Marceline would meet Princess Bubblegum in the royal tea room and find a place set only for her.

“Honestly..." Bonnibel took a delicate sip of tea, "I couldn’t stand the thought of, well.” She considered her words. “Continuing. While you rotted happily in the ground.”

Marceline stared at her cup in her hand, thinking. “You sure sounded game,” she said. “You literally said, ‘I am going to put you in the ground,’ I think. Which, you know…”

“Oh,” Bubblegum waved her off. “I was just trying to make you feel better about giving up.”

Marceline leaned back in her chair. “It did, weirdly. But, you know,” she sipped the pink off of the cherry blossom design on her antique tea cup, “vampire or no, I'm sure you'll outlast me somehow. All these years later and you're still nice and pink…”

Bubblegum covered a blush with a sip of tea.

“I doubt that,” she said, the drink going down hot. “But if so, well…”

“Could you really do it?” 

Bubblegum set her cup down. “What do you mean?”

Marceline was staring her down. “I dunno, Peebs. I feel like you'd try to frankenstein me back to life before you’d pick up a shovel.” 

“I like having you around,” Bubblegum said. “I prefer this world to have a Marceline in it. But frankensteining? That's kinda...” She smiled. “It just wouldn't be the same.”

“Yeah.” Marceline placed a hand over Bubblegum's, the tea warming their hands. “Then I guess we should try to make the best of the time we have left, huh?”

Bubblegum was still, but only for a moment. Her cheeks burned bright as she leaned over the table and brushed back the hair covering the patch at Marceline’s temple with her free hand. Marceline leaned into her touch, closing her eyes as Bonnibel’s thumb stroked the cool flesh of her old friend’s young face, the sharp bone under her cheek. 

Their hands were still clasped over the teacup. Marceline seized the wrist at her face, bringing the delicate pink fingers to rest against her lips. They sat like that, frozen, the tea cooling.

“You must be tired.” Bubblegum's voice was barely above a whisper. Marceline shook her head. She didn't let go of her hand, raising it so that she could feel the frantic vibration of Bonnibel's pulse, her candied blood singing against her lips. 

“I'm wide awake, Bonnibel.”


End file.
